Ten Plagues @ Traverse, Fringe 2011

One man, one piano, one vision

It’s a shame that writer Mark Ravenhill is adamant in his introduction to Ten Plagues that he wrote the libretto with Mark Almond in mind as the solo singer: Almond’s performance is the weakest aspect in a production that cleverly adapts a narrative about London’s black death into a worthy metaphor for any curse befalling a city. Almond’s star quality – evident as far back as his iconic appearance on Top of the Pops as part of Soft Cell – is not enough to hide his voice’s limited range and character, and while he revels in the lighter moments, he fails to capture the more hysterical, operatic sequences.

Director and designer Stewart Laing gives Ten Plagues an agitated energy. Opting for a sparse set, he allows Almond plenty of space to inhabit, and the subtle touches of video intensify the lonely isolation of the man adrift in a city of plague. Almond is at his best in the intimate numbers, remembering a lover or guilty enjoying the extravagance of a wig, and the finale, when his voice is joined by a chorus in the audience, makes the finale a melancholic celebration of survival.

Ravenhill’s words are a poetic evocation of the paranoia, selfishness and anxiety that grips a mind in the thrall of terror: the singer is lost in a city populated by the sick, dead and frightened. Without trying to justify the behaviour of a man who is simply trying to survive, Ravenhill demonstrates a profound compassion for the victims of the Black Death and, by extension, any urban horror. A descriptions of a trip to the fish-market, replete with period detail, becomes a vivid adventure into the heart of terror, resonate of both early responses to HIV and even contemporary anguish around financial disorder.

Almond is solid, but not remarkable, robbing the production of immediacy and high drama: Laing opts for an understated meditation and a triumphant end, suiting the undertow of Ravenhill’s writing and keeping Almond’s ability unexposed. Yet in avoiding the more rabid analysis of the plague, this vision of hell is a subtle reflection rather than a provocation.

Avin it with Mad Cyril: Product

Apparent, sum problems can't be solved by flingin a dustbin frew a winda. Vile's off in the corner, sobbin like a nancy, so it's time fer Mad Cyril to give ya a pick ov the Fringe.

Fing about featre is, too much poncin abaht and not enuff reality. Back in the day, when The East End Boys Club did their porno versin of Barker's Victory  in the function suite of The Queen and Flick Knife. it was all abaht the reality. That bird playin the King's bit on the side got a propa pumpin. None of this pretendin nonsense.

Still, if they gotta pretend, I guess Poulet's not a bad sort of pretendin. She's in my lad Mark Ravenhill's old classic, Product. Ravenhill wrote it just after he was comin dahn off that in-yer-face period ee had. It's all crap celebrity meets the war on terror, and gives a nasty insight inta the kind of pondlife who make a buck offa farkin over ideology and culture by turnin it inta a soppy romance.

Poulet's in that Games of Frones, which reminds me ov a weekend I spent in Sarf End last summer, but she does the ole heartless business bitch business nicely. She's sellin some script to some bint, convincin er that this'un'll save her career, which has been slidin down the bog quicker than a diabetic needin a gypsy. The way old Ravenhill mixes up it is well smart: if this script was a sort, I'd snort a gram off bof her bristols.

Am I aving it? I am aving if orf, mate. 

Investigating a process

I was working on a hunch again. It came to me when I was reading the introduction to Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking. After a brief warning that the script, as printed, probably wasn't going to be the script, as performed, Ravenhill mentions an ‘ecstasy workshop’ that he feels he ought to attend. Right there, I guessed that something was different about the way Max Stafford-Clark directed his shows. Sure, he’s been associated with a raft of celebrated authors – Caryl Churchill, David Hare, Howard Brenton, and William Shakespeare. But the way Ravenhill puts it, something more is going on in the studio than learning lines.

Let me go back to the beginning. I’d been trying to work out what ‘devised theatre’ meant. I keep seeing it about the place – coming out of the Royal Scottish Conservatoire, hanging out with the kids from the Contemporary Performance Practice course. And it has a heavy linguistic friend circle too: words like ‘problematize’ and ‘performativity,’ the kind of language to make a Latin scholar run to the etymological dictionary. There were rumours that Artaud was involved, maybe some of the guys from the San Francisco Mime Troupe – the ones who’d helped Eldridge Cleaver escape the heat in the 1960s, plus of a couple of the international heavy-weight crowd: Lecoq, even Brecht.

Like that time I decided to define ‘visual theatre’ for the manipulate festival, I was on shaky ground. Any attempt to pin down ‘devised’ to one definition only threw up exceptions that proved the rule was wrong. Using Complicite as a model, I got something close to physical theatre, based around movement: the British school of the 1990s, Frantic Assembly, DV8 supported the choreographic cross-over, but that left out things like Forced Entertainment’s Bloody Mess. That had been the tipping point that got me into the critical business in the first place, and damn if it didn't use text and speech more than movement or fancy visuals.

But Ravenhill’s evocation of a workshop process struck a chord. I’d been in the studio a few times already, once with The Ultimate Dancer to try and create a synthesis of dance and criticism. Ravenhill was signalling that there was a process going on here, one that opened up communication between the performers and the writer – and the director. Like Ravenhill nipping along to the rehearsal room for a wee taste, I was going to check out this Max Stafford-Clark character.

CANDIDE – A NEW PLAY BY MARK RAVENHILL INSPIRED BY VOLTAIRE

RSC TWEETS THE ENTIRETY OF VOLTAIRE’S ICONIC BOOK CANDIDE, IN THE RUN UP TO THE OPENING OF MARK RAVENHILL’S NEW PLAY

Directed by Lyndsey Turner

World Premiere

Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 29 August – 26 October


I met Mark Ravenhill once. He was very charming. I asked him what he did (he was introduced as Mark, so I didn't know). I really impressed him with my awareness of theatre. 

In a desperate attempt to compensate, I am offering the press release of his latest project. My contribution to the article was putting titles in italics, changing a 'xx' to 'uc' for one play title, and cutting out the notes to editors.

In the current intellectual climate, when repeats are as common as new work, Ravenhill's project is intriguing. It refuses to follow the easy routes of either traditionalism or complete re-interpretation, but seems to be a philosophical glance at a book that is as much about the ideas as the narrative.

Press Release begins.


RSC Writer in Residence Mark Ravenhill has responded to Voltaire’s classic novel in a new play which asks the question: Is it possible to be an optimist in today’s world? In the run up to the world première of this new play in the Swan theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon on 29 August, Ravenhill has adapted the entire book that inspired his play into tweets of 140 characters so that everyone has the chance to read and get to know the original book in advance of his version for the stage. These will be sent out daily between Wednesday 26 June and the opening on 29 August at the rate of eight tweets per day.

Ravenhill said: 'My new play is a response to Voltaire's classic tale rather than a 'straight' adaptation. Although it works as a stand-alone piece, I believe audiences coming to the Swan theatre will have their enjoyment enhanced if they read Voltaire's original. The direct, simple wit of Voltaire's style is perfect for Tweeting. I've worked on a new translation of the original, breaking it down into 140 character 'episodes' that can be tweeted eight a day over the next few months.

‘It's been a fascinating exercise. It has deepened my appreciation of Voltaire's writing: it's incredible to see how every single sentence of the book advances the story and how almost every sentence stands alone as a great quotation all by itself. Very occasionally I've nipped and tucked to fit the 140 character form and sometimes I've repeated a character name or place to make each Tweet able to stand alone.

‘It makes me wonder which other great authors could be tweeted and which would be unsuitable. For instance, Dickens’ sentences and thoughts are too long. But maybe the best way to read Finnegans Wake would be a Tweet at a time.

'Candide has long been a favourite book of mine. I wanted to explore Voltaire's satirical view of humanity's capacity for optimism and ask what it might mean for us today. I'm fascinated by Doctor Pangloss' belief in the book that this is 'the best of all possible worlds'. This got me thinking that it would be exciting to write a play set in a number of different possible worlds, each of them exploring the question of optimism in a different way. I enjoy stories such as David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Charlie Kaufman films such as Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, all of which use a number of parallel universes. And since I was a child I've enjoyed Doctor Who stories in which different worlds and times exist side by side.

'In my play, we visit a Venetian noblewoman's house as she puts on a play of the life of Candide, an eighteenth birthday party set in contemporary Britain which ends in terrible disaster, the offices of an international mogul as he sets out to make a movie based on a real life story of survival, the utopian world of Eldorado where gold is worthless and sheep fly and, finally, the slightly-in-the-future Pangloss Institute, where optimism has become a thriving business venture'.

Mark's version of Brecht's A Life Of Galileo was recently produced in the RSC's Swan Theatre. His previous work includes Shopping and Fucking (Royal Court) , Mother Clap's Molly House, Citizenship (both National Theatre) and Pool No Water (Frantic Assembly). His plays have been widely translated and produced all over the world. He is the co-creator of the ITV sitcom Vicious.

The production is directed by Lyndsey Turner, Associate Director at Sheffield Crucible and The Gate Theatre, who has most recently directed Chimerica at the Almeida (transferring to the West End shortly) andPosh at the Royal Court/ West End. This will be her RSC directorial debut.

The cast is led by Matthew Needham in the title role of Candide, with Ian Redford as Pangloss. Matthew and Ian are both currently appearing with the RSC, Matthew in Titus Andronicus, and Ian in A Mad World My Masters. Susan Engel joins the company as Cunegonde.


The production’s designer is Soutra Gilmour, with lighting by Tim Lutkin and Christopher Shutt. Music is by Michael Bruce and sound by Christopher Shutt. Movement by Scott Ambler.

This performance includes strong language, violence and reckless optimism. Suitable for ages 15+